Health bill clears Congress

Congress completed its work Thursday night on the broadest social legislation in almost a half-century, as the House capped the yearlong legislative saga over health reform by signing off on a package of fixes to the newly minted law.

In the end, the titanic battle over remaking the American health care system drew to a close on a pair of votes drained of suspense — after the Senate approved the cleanup bill earlier Thursday. The House approved the same bill, 220 to 207.

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The votes deliver twin victories to President Barack Obama, the health care overhaul on which he staked the first year of his presidency and a lesser-noticed provision that would carry out a major restructuring of the student loan industry.

“The benefits for Americans start right now,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, who also cited changes to the student loan system that Democrats included in the health reform cleanup bill. “That’s the road to prosperity. That’s the road to freedom for America’s families.”

But Republicans warned that Obama had overreached in his effort to pass the bill, which employed fast-track rules to get around the possibility of a Republican filibuster.

“The American people are asking, where are the jobs, but as we see today, the issue of government-run health will continue to be the focus on this body,” said House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio. “We’re going to be back here fixing the flaws in this very flawed bill.”

With Vice President Joe Biden presiding over the chamber, the Senate took the first step Thursday, passing the package of fixes, 56 to 43. But the work wasn’t done quite yet.

That’s because the last bit of drama on health reform had actually occurred early Thursday morning, when Republicans succeeded in finding two parts of the reconciliation bill that didn’t pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, both regarding Pell grants for low-income students.

So the version passed by the Senate had to be passed again by the House — even though the House had already passed the landmark legislation Sunday night that Obama signed on Tuesday. But since both houses must pass identical versions of legislation to send it to the president’s desk, the House had to return for one final vote, with members nervous over any last-minute blow-ups that could endanger the reconciliation bill.